


Coming Home

by Yewbro (orphan_account)



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Angst, M/M, Sadness, what are tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-10 20:53:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5600440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Yewbro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the minutes before and minutes after Hide's death, Kaneki mourns the time he could have had.</p><p>or</p><p>A badly written sequel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming Home

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, okay, so you don't reeeeeeally have to read the fic before this, but it might embellish some details about what's happening in this story. But be a babe and read it anyways ;).

Kaneki Ken had read books.

Thousands of them, of different genres and by different authors, in different languages and different text, online, braille, hardcover. Naturally, he stumbled across words that gave him pause. Words used in different context, uncommon words, words he didn't know the meaning of. 

He remembers seeing a word that he had seen only a handful of times before, but never seen like this. The word was desolation.

In the dictionary, the meaning reads 'a state of complete emptiness or destruction.' and he had frowned at that, because he had not known what this applied to at the time. He knew how to apply the term to rooms or objects, inanimate objects that could not feel, but the author of his book was using it as an adjective, not a noun, and he didn't know how to do that. 

He asked his mother, who looked confused before he read the passage out loud for her. When he looked up again, his mother was frowning at him. 

 _"Ken,"_ she'd said, _"If.. If someone feels like this, they.."_ she had paused, and her lips met in a tight line. She is quiet for a few seconds. 

 _"It means that they don't feel things anymore, and they can't think anything anymore."_ She tries to explain in a way he will understand, but he looks at her with confused eyes. 

 _"So, they're really sad?"_ He'd asked, and his mother had smiled at him sadly.

_"If only it were just that, Ken."_

He hadn't understood at the time, but had nodded and walked away anyways, still wondering how someone could be more than just extremely sad. 

The memory comes to him now, as he holds Hides body against his own with flames starting to close in on them from all sides, and he suddenly knows what it is to feel complete emptiness, and he smiles at the feeling. He isn't sure how the fire started, but it doesn't matter anymore, he decides, and as the room grows warmer and warmer all Kaneki can do is cover Hide's body with his own as debris falls around them. 

He replays his last words over and over in his mind, letting them mingle and fester until his thoughts turn into something ugly. 

How had he known? Why hadn't he said anything? 

_Because you were never there to say anything to._

Kaneki lets himself feel a spark of anger at the stupid boy lying in his arms for entering the dangerous world which Kaneki lived in, but the thought is iced as he thinks of Hide's reasons.

_He just wanted to protect you like you were trying to protect him. He wanted you to be safe, like you wanted him to be safe. He wanted to be in your world so that he could stay close to you._

Kaneki deflates at this. A numbness settles in his bonesas the flames surrounded him, licking at his clothes and consuming his skin. He pulls Hide’s empty body closer to his chest, burying his face in his hair. Hide smells of smoke and flames, as everything else in the room does, but underneath there is still the lingering scent of something like sunshine and sweat, and his skin in still smooth and supple when Kaneki smooths his thumb across Hide’s cheekbone, and there is no way he can be dead, not when he didn’t know, shouldn’t have known, shouldn’t have been here.

Red and clear tears mingle on his chin, and Kaneki cries silently as the building collapses around them. He cries for the past they had together, and for the future they should have had together, and all the things he missed because he was too afraid of this happening. But it happened anyways, and now Hide’s gone, and god, Kaneki wishes he’d spent more time with Hide, wishes he had more time with him now. He’s almost out of time, and Hide is already out of time, and the only thing he can do is sit and wait for the flames to swallow him.

He feels his skin bubbling and tearing underneath his clothes, and his mouth turns dry while his eyes water, trying to fight the heat, trying to save him, but he is already gone, and he smiles with this knowledge.

At the last second, he pulls his face back from Hide’s hair, and leans down to press a kiss to his forehead. His last words are spoken seconds before the ceiling gives in, and collapses in on them.

“I’m coming home, Hide.”

**Author's Note:**

> See you in hell munchkins.


End file.
